All Creatures Great and Small

21/02/2026

09/08/2024

Please Join/Follow the Tuli Research Centre for India Studies, our new cultural institution dedicated to building the visual-textual knowledge-bases for India Studies via the arts, humanities, social sciences, animal welfare, veterinary sciences, and ecological studies.
With affection Neville Tuli

17/08/2016

Join us for our 3rd Masterclass at Animal-Human-Nature Continuum: Dr. Prakash Amte and Dr. Mandakini Amte, awardees of the Magsaysay Award for 'Community Leadership', in conversation with myself.
Followed by a screening of 'Dr Prakash Baba Amte: The Real Hero' a 2014 film based on his life directed by Samruddhi Porey starring Nana Patekar, Sonali Kulkarni and Mohan Agashe.
It will be followed by a Q & A with Samruddhi Porey and the Amte's.
Entry on first come first served basis.
https://www.facebook.com/events/313116135702010/
Also visit osianama.com for further details on other events and Film Schedule

14/07/2016

Dear Friends,
It is with pleasure that we invite you to the 1st Masterclass as part of the Animal-Human-Nature Continuum Film & Arts Festival.
Pritish Nandy, is an eminent multi-faceted creative personality - from film-maker to poet to editor to parliamentarian to animal activist to journalist. He has a vast body of creative experience and ideas bursting in his mind constantly, with a fervor, insight and energy always happy to share with the public. His 1 million plus Twitter followers will now get a rare chance to share his ideas with a unique conversation with myself at the iconic art-deco Liberty Cinema, which is Osianama's new Mumbai Headquarters. Entry will be on First come first seated Basis and is Free to all.
Do join us on Saturday 30th July for what is expected to be a highly educative and enlightening Masterclass. For further details and Film Schedule visit www.osianama.com. With affection NT

11/07/2016

The inner joy of a cat clearly shows on their face. The curiosity caresses that joy to implant an elfish naughtiness in their posture. Fused with the joyous curiosity is the comfort of being free amid a human matrix, belonging on no terms, trusting the human will serve you. Grey Goose, like all the feline children in the Funny Farm, once stray or abandoned on the street, today free within the protection and care one can provide. Yet they love only when they feel the urge, we must love them all the time, that is why living with cats teaches the human to move from selfishness to selflessness much more inevitably that one imagines. It also enhances our stubbornness, to be patient to a fault at times...

09/07/2016

Admission for Festival only a token fee of INR 100 for 170+ Film Screenings
Dear Friends,
For over twenty years I have firmly believed in providing free access to the Indian public to the best of culture whatever the circumstances; it should be a basic right.
All our pioneering exhibitions, events and festivals, starting from HEART's 1995 Intuitive-Logic to Osian's 2005 Revisualizing India to Osianama's 2016 Womanhood, among many others, have helped to nurture a deeper awareness, respect and love for the Indian fine and popular arts, cinema & culture, which would not usually find significant outreach space in India's normal entertainment-driven cultural lexicon.
This was successfully carried out by one's cross-subsidizing policy of using the Auction House as a generator of wealth, which in turn generated the cash flows so as to redistribute wealth to carry out these critical cultural infrastructure-building platforms. Even when we faced our severest financial difficulties we tried to continue this policy, never resorting to corporate sponsorship or government funding or private philanthropy.
The principle of fighting for one's financial self-sufficiency was/ is critical so that we never compromise on the intellectual content. More than ever the need for this must be clear to the creative and academic communities today.
For Osianama's recent Animal-Human-Nature Continuum Festival at Liberty Cinema, we are showing 170+ great films, from the classics to the contemporary cinematic nuggets. As should be the norm, we expected to receive Entertainment Tax Exemption as there was to be no charge and the Festival is purely for the benefit of the Indian public, with free entry to all.
In its wisdom, no ET exemption should be provided was suddenly the decision taken by the Department. This implies that we must pay nearly 35% Entertainment Tax on each 100 rupee ticket attendee even though we will not be charging anyone.
Even with the most charitable mindset one found this decision to be unethical, though it must be legally tenable.
Thus we were told to charge INR 2,000 (with 50% Discounts to Senior Citizens, Students & Children) for the Festival Catalogue which is a fair mode undertaken by all festivals. After all, Osianama's costs of hiring the venue, paying Sales agents for the films, staff wages, would come to about INR 75 to 80 lacs, assuming no marketing costs or international guests are invited. At the most we would collect INR 10 to 12 lacs from selling the catalogue given the past experience of attendees which in turn will cover the additional ET charges.
Even a government would think twice for such subsidization. Yet, for me personally charging for the catalogue is self-defeating. The level of awareness in India today for World Cinema is minimal; we are still begging for the public to come and enter this world on their own volition without using any celebrity-bait. The popular Hindi cinemas have only now started to give way to popular commercial Hollywood fare. To expect the Indian public, even just the students and the film enjoying fraternities to appreciate a slow Romanian film in black and white or a Painleve Retrospective or the normal Festival film would still take a few more years, if not more.
Yet the process has to be sustained daily. It is not enough to rely on a few 10 day festivals, which though essential and critical, are really not capable of nurturing a daily aesthetic on their own. I cannot say with confidence that we will be able to sustain this process ourselves with Osianama, though we will try our very best.
For now, I have decided that the purchase of the Catalogue for INR 2,000 will no longer be required, instead we will sell the Film Festival Schedule Brochure for only INR 100 which will give everyone free access to all the 170 + films for the two month period.
It is essential, we give access to as many as we can, whatever the circumstances we face, with a love and hope, that soon, apart from just having a love for cinema, we truly develop a cinematic culture which recognizes that cinema is first and foremost one of the greatest art forms which by chance is also one of the greatest forms of entertainment.
Come and enjoy the AHNC Festival with your family and friends; visit http://osianama.com/ for the full Film Schedule and other details, and daily engage with us on www.facebook.com/OsianamaatLiberty/?fref=ts.
With affection
Neville Tuli

07/07/2016

I, Munni, see through all before me, absorbing only that which ennobles me; relaxing the bones and eye is all that matters, as this soul is indestructible;
for millennia we cannot be bought or corrupted, we cannot manipulate or be clever, we but love; we love food, play, a small piece of land, and humans. In loving humans we have most to fear, most to heal, most fulfilling;
we yearn that they open their suppressed innocence, recognising we love without being controlled, even if we are fully free we will love them deeply, as they yearn to be free, we love being allowed to be free...
surely a stray can be lovable without any conditions; give us rights of way, travel, to loiter, to just roam the streets with joy, create the safeguards for us to be free, with open minds and hearts, it is truly not that difficult; all of us cannot or do not wish to be pets, we are ancient travelers, your oldest and first companion, even your last in some cases;
give us a home on the street, in little corners, wherever circumstances have led us build to help our hygiene; let us be if you cannot take us home with unqualified love; drive slowly beside us, do not lash out with frustration or throw stones or fiery taunts;
just enjoy that we are alive together, under the same sky, and if by chance you share food and some medical care, all the more welcome, we truly never bite first, only to protect or if infected beyond control, your head and heart is safest and most loved before us, no other is embedded in your deepest good as is your relationship with us;
we are but mere mortal dogs, alive but for a short childhood, but in your heart, soul and memories for a lifetime...